


Anniversary Effect

by gnomesb4trolls



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnomesb4trolls/pseuds/gnomesb4trolls
Summary: November brings up some bad memories for Eleven, and this time she's not in Hawkins anymore.Just...Eleven having a rough time and Will trying to help. CN for a lot of self-blame on Eleven's part.
Relationships: Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Anniversary Effect

It’s her first November outside of Hawkins. 

It feels strange to think of it that way, because in the lab there was no November and no Hawkins: she could have been anywhere, and months and years meant nothing. She used to hear the guards talking about seasons, holidays, anniversaries and birthdays, but she didn’t know what most of those words meant, only that they made her hungry for something she couldn’t have. 

She can feel November in her lungs and in her throat, a whiff of wood smoke and she’s running through the woods again, away away away. She’d felt it last year too, but then she’d gotten Mike back, and the rest of her friends, and it had been enough to look at their faces and remember the good times, those nights in Mike’s basement when she’d first learned what safe felt like. 

Joyce had said that they were moving for a fresh start, to get away from the bad memories, but the bad memories are still here, and there’s nothing familiar to keep her tethered to the present. She’s holding on as hard as she can but her grip keeps slipping, and she’s tired. 

They’re eating dinner, and it’s quiet except for the scrape of forks on plates. They’ve only been here a week and everything still feels new and too bright, and they have a bigger table now but she misses the way her knee used to bump Will’s under the old one. 

Joyce starts talking. “I know that this is hard, but Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. And then maybe we can visit for your birthday, Will, or…”

It takes El a few seconds to notice that all three of them are looking at her, because she’s staring at her plate and trying to decide how much she has to eat to keep Joyce from noticing and getting that little crease between her eyebrows that means she’s worried. 

It’s quiet for too long, though, and then Joyce is giving her that look even though she doesn’t know what she’s done to make her worry. “When’s your birthday, El? I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

Oh. She sets down her fork. It’s hard to look at any of them. “I don’t know.” 

Joyce’s frown deepens. “Well, I’m sure we can find out. I think…”

“No.” She feels Jonathan and Will exchange glances across the table, but she tries to only focus on Joyce. Slow down. “I mean, I know…what day it is. Hop told me. About birthdays. But that day was…bad. I saw…Mama’s memory. And I told him that I didn’t want my birthday to be that day. So he said that I could pick any day I wanted. But I didn’t decide before—” She stops. She’s been working on complete sentences, but they all know how that one ends. 

“That was the day that they took you away from her.” There are tears in Joyce’s eyes. 

El nods. At least she understands that much. There’s more that she wants to explain but can’t find the words for: how she’d tried to be Jane, to erase the lab and the weapon they’d made her and become the girl who would have grown up in the pink bedroom in Aunt Becky’s house. Jane was gone, though, sucked into the black hole that Hopper had talked about, and there was no getting her out. 

The worst days are the ones when Will can feel it too. 

It gets cold overnight, and El wakes to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees outside. She shivers, burrowing deeper into her blankets. At breakfast, Will’s face is a closed door, his shoulders tensed as though he’s fighting something no one else can see. It’s hard to look at him, to see her own bad memories reflected back to her. Something inside of him is still broken, and maybe it’s the same thing that’s broken in her but only one of them did the breaking. It was easier to forget that, before they lived together. Now, she has to see his face every day and remember that she’s only here because that other Will, the one who was whole, is gone forever. 

At dinner Joyce and Jonathan keep looking at each other across the table, their faces mirrors of worry, and El pretends not to notice. Something twists in her stomach, but she stares at her plate and pushes her mashed potatoes around and tells herself that she’s safe, that Will is safe, that it’s all going to be all right. 

“El, honey? Are you OK?” 

She hadn’t noticed Joyce shifting her attention from Will to her. The knot in her stomach tightens. “I’m fine.” She smiles as best she can, but she can feel that it’s not very convincing. 

Will is looking at her too, now, meeting her gaze for the first time today, and there are shadows in his eyes that she knows too well, and she can’t stand it. 

She pushes her chair back, the metal legs squealing across the floor. “I need to be alone.” 

El will be proud of herself, later, that she said a full sentence. Now, though, she’s only getting away, her legs trembling as she gropes for the door of her room. 

She’s staring at the ceiling, taking deep breaths the way Joyce taught her, when Will knocks on the door. 

El sits up. She doesn’t know how long she’s been in here but there are deep shadows slanting across the wall. She’s never gotten tired of watching the light change; it still seems like magic, after the artificial brightness of the lab. 

“Come in.” 

He opens the door a crack, and she squints in the sudden glare of the hall light. “Mom sent me to see if you’re hungry. She kept your plate warm for you.” 

She nods. “I’ll be there in a minute.” 

He starts to turn around but then turns back, hesitating in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he finally says. 

El looks up at him. He’s taller than her now even when they’re both standing up, and with the light behind him she can only see part of his face. “Why?” 

“What do you mean?” He takes one more step into her room, forehead wrinkled in confusion. 

“Why are you sorry? It’s my fault.” Tears prick her eyes and she blinks them away. She looks down at her lap so that she doesn’t have to look at him, the tattoo on her wrist blurring. These days, sometimes she can almost forget that it’s there, but right now she feels it like a brand. 

“What’s your fault?” He looks like he wants to come closer, but he stays where he is. He’s always careful around her, making sure not to come too far into her space. 

She shakes her head. “Everything. I opened the gate, I—made everything go wrong.” And if I hadn’t, you’d be fine, and Hopper would be fine, and you’d still be with your friends. Her throat feels too tight to say anything else, but she sees his face change when he understands what she means. 

“But—that wasn’t your choice. You didn’t want to do it. And you saved me. Twice.” 

He says it like it’s really that simple. She thinks of Mike saying you’re not the monster, and she’d believed him then but it’s harder when he’s not here to look at her like she’s real and whole and good. He’d always been sure of her after that, and when she was around him it was easier to feel sure of herself. She feels a sudden longing for those first nights in the Wheelers’ basement, when it had been enough to have a warm place to sleep and soft clothes and someone talking to her like she was a person and not a weapon. 

She knows that Will’s trying to help, but it’s different with him. He doesn’t wear his emotions as openly as Mike does, and she’s living in his house, with his family, and she’s still not sure if he really wants her here or if he’s just accepted it because he didn’t have a choice. 

“I guess,” she shrugs. “Sometimes I think—that I could have been better. Stronger.” 

“You’re the strongest person I know.” He pauses for a second, and then adds, “And for what it’s worth, I don’t blame you for any of it. If that helps.” 

“Yes.” She tries to smile at him and it doesn’t quite work but that feels all right, for once. “It helps.” 

“Good.” There’s a silence, but that feels all right too. “Anyway, come and eat whenever you’re ready. Jonathan and I are going to watch a movie, so you can sit with us if you want. Even if you don’t want to stay for the whole thing.” 

El nods. “I’ll be right out.” 

He leaves her door open. 

The next morning after breakfast, Will asks her if she wants to share his birthday. “It doesn’t have to be forever.” He’s standing just inside her doorway again, leaning his lanky frame against the wall. “I mean, it can just be until you decide on a different day. Everyone will probably think we’re twins anyway, since we’re the same age.”  
Twins. It feels right. One right thing in all of the wrongness. 

“Yes.”


End file.
